BBM Money Enables Transfers and Payments

BBM users in Indonesia will be the first BlackBerry owners to be able to make transfers and payments using their smartphones. The BBM Money feature was created by Monitise in collaboration with Indonesian financial institution, PT Bank Permata, and the Canadian smartphone manufacturer. After receiving approval from the central bank, the service will have a small pilot in the country before rolling out to South East Asia’s largest population.

The news comes with the mobile payments company’s results for the six months to 31 December. Revenues increased 63 per cent to £27.8m compared to the previous half year. The company said this was driven by strong growth in user-generated revenue which rose 164 per cent, but the company made a group pre-tax loss of £24.4m loss following the acquisition of Clairmail, now called Monitise Americas.

The value of payments and transfers going through the network is now more than $31bn, compared with $10bn a year ago. Monitise now processes 2bn transactions per year, compared with 480m in February 2012. The company also has 20m registered customers today, compared with 6m in January 2012.

Author Description

Kirsty took the leap from the north-west to London in 2011 after securing a comms role working for the mobile marketing start-up Somo. Since September 2012, she has worked as a reporter for Mobile Marketing, writing news and features, appearing in videos and creating podcasts. Kirsty is now something of a 'mobile expert' and is particularly interested in mobile payments, mobile advertising and using mobile for good.
She has completed freelance projects for Wired, Dods, the Observer and Utility Week.